Results 1–20 of 326 for speaker:Mr Bernie Grant

Mr Bernie Grant: Has my right hon. Friend had the opportunity to see the recent Channel 4 documentaries on slavery, in which it was stated that one in five white people in Britain have the blood of African slaves running through their veins? Similarly, people from the Caribbean have white blood running through their veins. I do not want to worry him, but my mother's maiden name was Blair. Perhaps I should...

Mr Bernie Grant: I welcome the debate. Surprisingly, I agreed with many hon. Members who have spoken. The speech of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir N. Fowler) was full of bonhomie, and his tones were so dulcet that I was lulled into a false sense of security, until I remembered that he was a member of a Government who refused to have an inquiry into the Lawrence case. The right hon. Member for...

Mr Bernie Grant: I agree with my hon. Friend's comments. The matter should be reconsidered because, since he was given the go-ahead to continue as commissioner, he has appeared before the Select Committee on Home Affairs and—I understand—said that he does not accept the recommendation that the Race Relations Act 1976 should be extended to the police. We now see even more arrogance from Sir Paul Condon.

Mr Bernie Grant: I do not have the time to give way, but I am willing to engage in a debate with the hon. Gentleman outside the Chamber.[Laughter.] Pistols at dawn! Recruitment and retention are crucial, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) mentioned in an earlier intervention. An experiment that we conducted in Tottenham should be taken up by the Home Office. In...

Mr Bernie Grant: Has my right hon. Friend considered the recording of a person's ethnicity, either of those involved in racist attacks or of those who are arrested and charged? When I looked into the stop-and-search figures, I found that the recording of people's ethnicity varied around the country. Will he pay some attention to that issue?

Mr Bernie Grant: I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. Inner-city kids have long deserved such initiatives. However, I have a few words of caution for my right hon. Friend. On disruptive pupils, the proposals remind me of the old sin bins syndrome, against which a number of us fought. I hope that we are not returning to that situation, in which many black kids were put into sin bins because they...

Mr Bernie Grant: First, I want to pay tribute to the Lawrence family, their friends and supporters, for the stalwart nature that they have shown. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary on sticking to his promise, made before the general election, that we would have a public inquiry, but may I also warn him about the situation? We have been here before. I remember being very optimistic in...

Mr Bernie Grant: My problem is a practical one—something that is happening today. In my constituency is an organisation called the Kurdistan information centre, which looks after about 800 Kurdish refugees on a daily basis. The police have been raiding that organisation because they believe that it has been involved in terrorism, although the organisers tell me that that is not the case. None the less,...

Mr Bernie Grant: I am also concerned about the way in which a matter of this importance has been handled. I should have expected some notice, but, given the situation, I can appreciate why we did not have it. I do not appreciate the fact that there has not even been an opportunity for members of the parliamentary Labour party to discuss the matter. I wanted to do some research to find out whether the United...

Mr Bernie Grant: I do not wish to tax my hon. Friend unnecessarily; I know that he has a lot on his mind. Does he recall, however, that when we were in opposition he told the then Minister —I think it was Iain Sproat—that he wanted the lottery first prize to be extended and increased by some four or five times? Is he still of that mind, and will he confirm that he has been playing the lottery...

Mr Bernie Grant: I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman's case. He claims that arts bodies are annoyed with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, which is a serious charge. I know the Secretary of State, and I know arts bodies; I know that my right hon. Friend is very popular. Will the hon. Gentleman name three organisations that are at odds with my right hon. Friend?

Mr Bernie Grant: I agree with every word that the Chairman of the Select Committee on International Development, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), has said. His chairmanship of the Committee has been excellent—especially in relation to the issue of Montserrat—because of his great knowledge of the Caribbean and his many contacts there. It has been a pleasure to work with him;...

Mr Bernie Grant: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I am glad that she raised that point. She would be as amazed as I and the Committee were to discover that, not only did the British Government not know how many refugees were coming to the United Kingdom, but they did not even know how many Montserratians there were—and there are only about 3,000 of them. A member of the Committee said, "You have...

Mr Bernie Grant: Does my right hon. Friend recall that, after Saddam was defeated in the Gulf war, he set fire to all the oilfields in Kuwait in an act of spite? If, as my right hon. Friend says, Saddam has anthrax and chemical weapons, I suspect that he would unleash them on the rest of the region if he were defeated again. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, if that is the case, war should be the very...

Mr Bernie Grant: May I say to my right hon. Friend that the question is not whether Saddam Hussein is an evil dictator—that has been proven—but how we shall deal with him? My right hon. Friend must have heard that King Hussein of Jordan, Kofi Annan—the Secretary-General of the United Nations—and, recently, Nelson Mandela himself have said that there should be a diplomatic and not a...

Mr Bernie Grant: I find it amazing that hon. Members can, quite rightly, condemn Saddam Hussein for his atrocities but say nothing about Israel and its atrocities against the Palestinians and others. Will my hon. Friend the Minister answer a straight question with a straight answer? Who supports Britain and the United States in the Security Council? Does France, China or any other member support Britain and...

Mr Bernie Grant: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the Federal Government of the United States of America took a very big step when they decided that the Oklahoma city bombers could not be tried in Oklahoma city because they may not get justice there? If so, will he ask his friend, Bill Clinton, whether he would apply the same principle to the Lockerbie bombers, so that they can be tried in a neutral country?

Mr Bernie Grant: I believe that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is to visit South Africa. I wonder whether my hon. Friend the Minister will urge her to visit the computer information technology centre in Welkom in the Free State. She will see there an excellent project run by black British expatriates who are teaching people in places such as Bronville and Tahbong how to use information...

Mr Bernie Grant: Is my hon. Friend aware that in my constituency we have begun the process of scrutinising not only bogus immigration advisers but bogus immigration solicitors because quite a few of them know nothing about immigration law? Will my hon. Friend look at the papers, particularly the questionnaire worked on by my office, the Immigration Law Practitioners Association and the Law Society? He will...

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